From baby formula to helicopter crashes: Missouri’s biggest legal victories of 2024

The two largest plaintiff’s verdicts in Missouri for 2024 were cited by the American Tort Reform Association’s annual “Judicial Hellholes” report as the reason Missouri moved from No.  8 to No. 7 on its annual list, released last December. But for the attorneys who handled those two cases, the large jury verdicts were meant to send a message to large corporations that juries found liable for catastrophic injuries in one case and two deaths in the other case.

The top plaintiff verdict of the year, Gill v. Abbott Laboratories, centered on claims that Abbott’s baby formula increased the risk for necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC), a serious gastrointestinal disease primarily affecting infants, The disease can cause the death of intestinal tissue and, in severe cases, can be life-threatening. Tor Hoerman, Jake Plattenberger and Alan Holcomb of TorHoerman Law in St. Louis represented plaintiff Margo Gill, whose daughter Robin was injured by the infant formula.

“It really was a failure-to-warn case…the jury also found that there was a defective product … but the focus of the case was failure to warn of a known risk,” Hoerman said. “With failure to warn cases, sometimes it’s hard to say (the company) knew — that’s a difficult part of the case … it was almost admitted … this wasn’t a secret … the only person it as a secret to was Margo Gill and people like her. And this affects thousands of kids in the US and overseas.”

Plattenberger said he had never encountered an injury like NEC.

“When you learn the full extent of what this disease process does to a human being — even for someone like me who deals with quadriplegics and burn victims — I was absolutely floored when I learned the full extent of this injury. Robin is catastrophically injured and will be for the rest of her life.”

Plattenberger said the $400 million in punitive damages was meant to send a message to Abbott that “they seriously rethink their conduct in this regard.”

The second largest plaintiff verdict of the previous year also centered on a defective product — in this case the failure of rear impact guards (RIGS) manufactured by Wabash National.

In L.P., a minor and Summer Tailor v. Wabash National Corporation, a city of St. Louis jury found the national trailer manufacturer responsible for $462 million in damages in the May 2019 deaths of two young fathers killed when their car went underneath the rear of a tractor-trailer that had slowed for traffic along an Interstate 55 exit ramp near downtown.

At trial, the team of plaintiff lawyers argued that Wabash National ignored decades of research and warnings about the failures of its rear impact guards as an effective safety device to prevent underride crashes.

The punitive damages award represents the amount John G. Simon told the jury it would have cost the trailer manufacturer to build safer RIGS — $15 million annually — multiplied by what the attorney said was 30 years of inaction on the company’s part. Compensatory damages consisted of $6 million to each of the two families.

Big wins out of state

The largest plaintiff verdict of 2024 was handled by a Missouri firm in Illinois State Court. Simon Law Firm attorneys Tim Cronin, John. G. Simon and Nathan Perlmutter of St. Louis secured a $535 million jury verdict for their client, a 13-year-old girl, against The Pavilion Behavioral Health System in Champaign, Illinois, in Confidential v. The Pavilion Foundation.

The plaintiff was raped by an older boy at the facility.

“She’s basically scared to go out in the world, she doesn’t hardly leave her house. She hasn’t been able to go back to school,” Cronin said.

He asked the jury for $75 million in compensatory damages and $500 million in punitive damages, with the jury awarding a combined $40 million less than that. Still, the award is the largest single-plaintiff verdict in Illinois history, according to Cronin. He said the amounts he recommended were partly based on hearing from multiple focus groups.

“It’s both to punish the conduct specifically in this case and deter it by this defendant and others in the industry,” Cronin said. “What we’re hoping is, this leads to a culture change and some industry-wide changes to make sure these vulnerable kids are protected.”
Chicago attorney Mike Prangle of Hall Prangle & Schoonveld, who represented The Pavilion, said in a written statement his client will challenge the verdict.

The win was among a trifecta of nine-figure verdicts over the past year for The Simon Law Firm, including the No. 2 plaintiff verdict of the year, L.P., a minor and Summer Tailor v. Wabash National Corporation. A city of St. Louis jury deemed a national trailer manufacturer responsible for $462 million in damages in the May 2019 deaths of two young fathers killed when their car went underneath the rear of a tractor-trailer that had slowed for traffic along an Interstate 55 exit ramp near downtown.

Meantime the Kansas City aviation litigation firm Robb & Robb scored a record New York verdict in wrongful death suit stemming from chopper crash.

“There were 19 experts, over 150 motions in limine,” said Andrew Robb of Robb & Robb. “We had to present evidence against every defendant so our case in chief took weeks.”

The upshot is a verdict in excess of $116 million, including more than $3 million in punitive damages, for the family of Trevor Cadigan, a 26-year-old who perished with four other passengers when the tour helicopter they were riding in plunged into Manhattan’s East River in 2018 after a sequence of events during a “doors off” ride in the aircraft which was designed to promote a better view of the city including the opportunity for an individual to snap a photo of their feet dangling in front of the skyline.

Robb said the trial process was a long one and received considerable media attention including articles in the New York Post and New York Times. The trial took place in the same courtroom as former President Donald Trump’s E. Jean Carroll civil trial.

“We represented this family for six years and had two years of COVID delays,” he said. “It has meant a lot to them to have this verdict out there and they feel like justice was done after a long, hard fight.”

Robb and Robb also secured what appears to be the largest wrongful death settlement for an individual in U.S. history when a Nevada judge approved a $100 million settlement Jan. 5, 2024. The firm represented the parents of Jonathan Udall, a 31-year-old English tourist who was among five people killed as a result of a 2018 helicopter crash in the Grand Canyon. Udall and one other person survived the initial crash but died later due to burn injuries. But his death could have been avoided, his parents claimed, if the helicopter had been retrofitted with a modern fuel tank.

“Jonathan actually had no broken bones or internal injuries. He was able to exit the helicopter, but the helicopter almost instantly caught on fire, and so, he suffered burns over 90 percent of his body, and that’s what eventually took his life,” said Brittany Robb, one of the attorneys for his estate.

Confidentiality agreements

Anecdotally, attorneys have been telling Missouri Lawyers Media that more and more cases are being sent to mediation or arbitration rather than tried in court, and the statistics seem to bear that out. Of the 72 $1 million-plus cases in the MLM database for 2024, just under half were settlements. Excluding the Robb & Robb win in Nevada, four of the five largest settlements in 2024 were confidential cases — the attorneys submitting information withheld certain details such as the parties, the venue and most of the facts underlying the lawsuit.

The top settlement of 2024 was a Confidential v. Confidential case where the mother of an individual who was shot and killed at a commercial property in Kansas City was awarded a $27 million settlement. Attorney Ben Fadler of Ketchmark & McCreight in Leawood, Kansas, explained why the case was filed confidentially.

“The landowner in this case did not want to face us in front of a jury,” Fadler told Missouri Lawyers Media. “The 27-million-dollar settlement is a loud warning to absentee landowners. If you don’t improve security and protect people, we will come after you and you will pay for your neglect.”

Defense wins

Five of the top defense wins of the year were separated by just a few million dollars, ranging from a jury request of $32 million to one for $26 million.

The top defense win of the year was secured by Rebecca Cary and Mark Hennelly of Childress Ahlheim Cary for a man who crashed on the side of the road during a medical incident. The plaintiff was a 7-year-old injured in a separate but related crash.

Eugene Ruble, 75, was driving on a St. Louis expressway when he had a hypoglycemic event that caused him to pass out while he was driving. Although he crashed on the median off of the road, a fellow driver who attempted to stop and call 911 was rear-ended, resulting in injuries to their 7-year-old son.

Before trial, the plaintiff demanded $32 million in damages and their last pretrial demand was $5 million.

“I think it was clear that this was a separate motor vehicle accident. I think plaintiffs’ experts were stretching based on their opinions,” Ruble’s attorney, Mark Hennelly of Childress Ahlheim Cary, said. “I think that it was clear that there were no behavioral issues that were caused by the motor vehicle accident that were new.”